Page 35 of Dawnlands

“Can’t you foresee?” he asked her, trying to laugh it off. “Can you foresee her coming back here?”

“No,” she said thoughtfully. “I’ve only dreamed of her once, just once. A strange dream of a bluer sea than I have ever seen in this world, and she was in a little boat, with a boy. In my dream, she was going home.”

“She can never do that!” he told her.

“Come and sit.” Alys called them to the dinner table. Alinor smiled at Johnnie and took her seat between Rob and Captain Shore, as Johnnie sat down beside his mother. Alinor gave thanks for the food and blessed those who were absent that evening—“Our daughter, Sarah, and her family in Venice, and my brother, Ned, wherever he is tonight, and his companion Rowan, our dear son Matthew. Keep them safe, Lord, and bring them safely home. Amen.”

“No Matthew tonight?” Captain Shore asked his wife.

“His mother invited him to dine in her rooms at court.”

He raised his sandy eyebrows at Rob. “He’s dining with her now?”

“Why not?” Alinor asked generally. “She’s his own mother, in London. It makes no difference to us.”

Captain Shore served himself with a generous slice of roast chicken and glanced at Rob. “Does it make no difference to you, Doctor?”

Rob shrugged. “No difference at all. The false contract between us was declared invalid, and she married Sir James, good luck to him. I’ve a wife and child of my own; I never think of her, and my wife doesn’t even know of her existence.”

“You never mentioned her?”

“I told Julia’s father, the Alderman, when we were negotiating the marriage contract. I would’ve told Julia, but he advised me to say nothing, and forget about it myself. It’s more for you, Sister—you raised Matthew. And for you, Ma—you’ve kept him here and treated him like your own child. You can’t welcome her back into his life. Let alone yours?”

“She’s not in our lives,” Alys said stoutly. “We’ll never see her here—that’s for sure. But a child should know his mother. I never pretended he was mine. I’ve loved him as much as a mother does, the Lord knows—but he’s always known her name. Ma said: ‘Better that he meets her, than imagines an angel’ and I think she’s right.”

“No chance of him mistaking her for an angel!” Rob said shortly.

Alinor smiled at her daughter. “Livia Avery did one good thing in her life when she left him with us.”

“She’s taken a berth on my ship to Rome,” Captain Shore told Rob. “I didn’t think to ask you…”

“No need to ask me,” Rob confirmed. “And no need to tell me either. I’d rather know nothing. But make sure that you leave her at Rome! We don’t want her disturbing Sarah’s happiness with her husband, Felipe, and their family in Venice.”

“Aren’t you even curious?” Alys questioned her brother.

He shook his head. “I promised myself I’d never look back. I advised you to do the same. She’s like laudanum: at first, it’s wholly beneficial, then you can’t imagine your health without its support, and you want more and more.” He looked at his sister. “D’you know what I mean?”

She scowled at him and shook her head. “I forget.”

“Have you said nothing at all to Julia of your past?” Alinor asked him quietly.

“I told her that I’d been wrongly arrested in Venice, and that Sarah came and got me out of the Doge’s prison. I’ve never said more; and she has no curiosity.”

His mother and his sister exchanged a quick glance at the thought of a woman with no curiosity, but neither of them challenged him.

“I’ll take a fee for the passage, and I’ll deliver her and her mistressto Rome and gladly never see her again.” Captain Shore promised him. “She won’t come here, she can board at Greenwich.”

Alinor nodded. “And in any case, Captain Shore has far more interesting passengers for the return voyage. Sarah is sending her girls to us for a visit.”

“Ah, they’re coming!” Rob said warmly. “They must come to my house and meet their little cousin, they can share Hester’s lessons. I owe my life to Sarah—her girls can count on my home as their own.”

“Better check with your wife first,” Alys said with a sly smile to her mother, knowing that Julia welcomed no one from the wharf at the elegant house in Hatton Garden.

Rob flushed. “Julia will be pleased to meet her nieces,” he said flatly. “You must all come and dine with us when they arrive.”

ST. JAMES’S PALACE GARDENS, LONDON, SPRING 1685

The king and his gentlemen were walking with the queen and her ladies in a show of royal confidence that fooled no one. Queen Mary, exhausted by sleepless nights of worry, could have been carried in a sedan chair; but she would not show weakness before the residents whose windows overlooked the royal gardens. The king’s notorious mistress Catherine Sedley had built a little hill at the end of her garden, with a winding path and a banqueting hall at the top, so that she could overlook the royal gardens and be seen by her royal lover. Now, as the royal party went past, they saw a swirl of bright silk as Catherine Sedley dashed to the top of the hill and waved joyously at the king.